Cool New York Businesses

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aqua-cyclingNew York is becoming home to some very cool new businesses. For both tourists and residents alike, New York City businesses are making life easier, more exciting and inspiring. This article will detail a few of the latest crazes to hit the city.

First, there is AQUA – the cycling studio with a pool. It uses water for intense resistance, immersing state-of-the-art bikes in a candlelit pool. It definitely spices up a standard routine for those who have until now stuck strictly to swimming or cycling.

Second, there is BarBacon. A pure gem for bacon lovers, this Bar serves everything with bacon. Some of the features of the bar includes: a bacon tasting menu, the beer and bacon flight and a bacon Bloody Mary! Yes indeed, when they say everything, they mean everything has to have bacon with it. This cocktail is made from bacon vodka and garnished with bacon.

Third, there is Black Seed Bagels. Maybe it’s taking its inspiration from the latest Denny’s to hit Manhattan (which is an upscale version of the family-style breakfast and steakhouse restaurant), this eatery is a bagel store with a difference, with quality Montreal-style bagels with toppings such as tobiko caviar cream cheese!

Fourth, there is Blue Apron. In the mood for eating out but don’t want to eat out? Want to make the meal yourself but well, actually don’t want to make the meal? Blue Apron delivers all ingredients to your home that you need to cook a meal. Sign up for weekly service to have fresh ingredients delivered (for free, if you subscribe) to make three meals in the right proportions. Each meal will take a mere 35 minutes or less to prepare.

These are just some of the latest cool ventures to hit the New York business hotspot. New York sure is making life easier, and for those who have gotten locked out their houses, check out this other New York business, KeyMe – which enables key-holders to share and duplicate actual keys based on a digital scan taken and stored in the cloud. Keys are then printed immediately or print and sent to the customer later.

New York is just getting better and better.

Businesses Motivated to Move to New York

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Start-Up NY – the initiative put in place by New York’s Mayor Governor Andrew M. Cuomo around a year ago – seeks to offer businesses substantial incentives to move their work to New York, either by expanding their existing businesses or “starting up” new ones. The initiative being given is that these companies will be exempt from paying taxes for a staggering ten years! This means, no income tax, business, corporate, state or local taxes, sales and property taxes, or franchise fees. That means companies can make a huge saving.

Two of the eight companies that will benefit from the initiative this year are: Appistry and Liazon. Appistry is a cloud computing firm based in St. Louis that is seeking to expand into the Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, at Buffalo University. Using the program, the firm will pour $2.45m into its expansion, and, once in New York, offer eight new jobs.

Liazon is set to hire a further 500 individuals over the next five years thanks to help from Start-Up NY. This firm offers private online health benefit exchanges.

According to the Governor, 659 jobs in total are being created (the bulk of which Liazon can take credit for), thanks to this initiative. A hundred of these are from BAK USA.

 

New York City Skyline

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New-York-City-SkyscrapersNew York City is constantly evolving as new skyscrapers are erected. One example is Hudson Yards, a huge new development in Manhattan, valued at $20bn. The project – engineered by Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group – should be finished within the next four years and will feature offices, stores, restaurants, parks and more. Located between 10th and 12th Avenues, and running from 30th to 34th Street, those using the complex will be able to access it from an extension of the No. 7 subway line.

Also in the pipelines is the Nordstrom Tower. Due to be completed in 2018, this will measure 1,775 feet high and will be at 225 West 57th Street. Designed by Adrian Smith (who is famous for designing the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in downtown Dubai), the Nordstrom Tower is set to be the world’s tallest residential structure – 300 feet higher than anything else in Midtown (although a foot shorter than One World Trade Center).

Clearly, over the next few years New York’s skyline is going to continue its process of evolving.

Getting Around NYC for a Dollar

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dollar-vansIt started back in 1980 when buses and subway trains went on strike in New York, making getting around the five towns very difficult. Fast forward 14 years and these modes of transport were legally able to serve parts of the city once they got a license from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission In comes dollar vans, and the rest as they say, is history.

Today, dollar vans are a great way of getting around. Over the last year, Aaron Reiss took to the streets of New York and set about investigating the pros and cons of these, as he himself hopped aboard the dollar vans, covering: Chinatown, Flatbush, Eastern Queens, Eastern Jersey and The Edenwald Line.

He shares his findings in an article that was published by The New Yorker entitled New York’s Shadow Transit. In terms of Chinatown, since increasing rents have resulted in a lot of Chinese immigrants having to leave Chinatown, the dollar vans are great for them since they are inhabiting places without decent public transportation. With these, Reiss found, transportation time is cut in half since it only takes around 35 minutes to go via this method from Chinatown to Flushing as opposed to around 90 minutes via the subway.

Brooklyn residents like the vans too. It reminds the ones who have Caribbean roots of home, resulting in inspired reggae tributes and in-van concerts known as Dollar Van Demos! Indeed, what it seems like, is that not only are these vans a great way of saving time and money, they add an entire culture to lifestyle and living in the Big Apple.

Boston Ballet Visits New York

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Boston BalletWhen a ballet performance arrives at the Big Apple, one might be justified in expecting it to give the city that never sleeps its best. But so far the jury is still out as to whether the Boston Ballet has achieved that on its tour of New York.

Performing at NYC’s Lincoln Center, the Boston Ballet’s performances included: the 1972 Symphony in Three Movements and the 1912 Afternoon of a Faun. Music was from Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Bibe.

But still, for those who haven’t yet had the chance to see the Boston Ballet and find themselves in New York City towards the end of this month, it might be worth checking it out. These New York performances are the last stop on their tours that began back in July of last year.